


Reverdy's Campaign

by jadelennox



Category: Flora Segunda Series - Ysabeau S. Wilce
Genre: Backstory, Canon Disabled Character, Flashbacks, Gen, Hubris, time shifts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadelennox/pseuds/jadelennox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No!" The General stood, and she was every inch the Butcher Brakespeare and in no part his Tiny Doom. "You've <em>seen</em> the mess Hardhands left behind. At this rate we'll be an Aztalan client by mid-summer, and that's assuming they don't just raze us to the ground and salt the remains. Pigface Psychopomp, boys, they'll sell our brats into hard labor in Ticonderoga, set up a sacrificial pit in the Embarcadero, spit corpses on the spire of Saeta House."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reverdy's Campaign

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Warning: Some ableist language used by the characters around mental illness. Canon-standard references to gore. Canon-standard xenophobia.

> "She's just vanished, Reverdy. I thought we could trust Boy Hansgen to keep her safe, and now she’s alone on the high seas, Xipe Totec wants her, Axacaya knows about Azota, and Flora knows _nothing_." Buck sat at the kitchen table, gazehounds snuffling nervously around her feet, her eyes clenched shut in distress.
> 
> Hotspur adjusted Pow, shifting the baby's weight carefully onto his bad arm so he could rest his other hand on Buck's knee. "She's smart, and she's learning focus. She'll be fine."
> 
> Buck opened her eyes and glared up at him. "You don't know that."
> 
> No, he didn't know that. Sometimes when you went off, overflowing with confidence, to become the person you were meant to be, everything went horribly wrong. Sometimes your world ended.
> 
> Sometimes you came home to a squalling ginger toddler you couldn’t even see.
> 
> Hotspur pressed a soft kiss to Pow's fuzzy head, inhaling baby powder and sour milk. "You're right," he said, squeezing Buck's knee. “I don’t. But she has to do it anyway. And Nini Mo will look out for her."
> 
> Buck raised one eyebrow. She looked worried in that stoic, General-ish way. At least it wasn't the surpressed panic of her _is Hotspur going mad again?_ face.
> 
> "If you don't have faith in the ghost of Nyana," he said, grinning. "I certainly do." _I'm not crazy,_ he hoped he was projecting. _Just joshing._ "Wouldn't put much past the Coyote Queen."
> 
> A tiny smile quirked at the corner of Buck's mouth. Buck almost never smiled these days, except at Pow, and Hotspur wanted to punch his fist in the air in victory. Not that he could lift his arm that high even if he weren’t holding the baby.
> 
> "I suppose," she said.
> 
> Hotspur smiled down at Pow. "Dare, win, or disappear."
> 
> "As long as it's not 'disappear'," said Buck.

* * *

Hotspur's lips drew back as he read the dispatch over the General's shoulder. The air at Bilskinir House was always warm and comfortable, but he felt the chill of rage settle on him.

"Angeles fallen," hissed Moxley, reading over the General's other shoulder. "Let me go, Sir." 

Hotspur clenched his fists, calculating how quickly he could leave. Buck was leading the diplomatic mission to Porkopolis, and couldn't be saddled with the kiddies right now. Idden was old enough to leave under Valefor's supervision, but not old enough to take care of Flora. And he'd hardly trust Valefor to take care of the baby. She'd have to come with; she'd be safe with the major.

"Ayah, I'll leave at nightfall," he said. "I have to bring Flora, which means Melacton will have to come along as well."

"You can't bring the baby," said Moxley, at the same time the General said, "You're not going. You either, Sorrel."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Hotspur, twitching the gold brocade on his cuffs. "Let me bite back."

The General pressed her fingers into her temples until the skin turned white. She closed her eyes. "What will it accomplish for you to go dancing through the streets of Angeles, collecting feathered scalps? I need you here, both of you, helping me plan actual strategy. Because fiking Florian would happily throw our armies against the Birdies until we disappear behind piles of corpses, and Hardhands' tactics were..." She trailed off.

Moxley nodded, face grim. Hotspur silently agreed. Hardhands' death might have come too late to save Califa. 

"What good are we doing here?" he demanded. "Anyone can bring you tea and file your briefs. Let the Alacrán do what we were built for. Let your Skinners win back Angeles." He met Moxley's eyes over her head. They were both champing at the bit to go hunting Birdies, Hotspur was sure of it, but Moxley was shaking his head. _No,_ Hotspur could see him thinking. _Don't push this._

But pushing Azota was what he _did_. And running errands like a good aide-de-camp wasn't. "I can fix this. Fix their blasted--"

"No!" The General stood, and she was every inch the Butcher Brakespeare and in no part his Tiny Doom. "You've _seen_ the mess Hardhands left behind. At this rate we'll be an Aztalan client by mid-summer, and that's assuming they don't just raze us to the ground and salt the remains. Pigface Psychopomp, boys, they'll sell our brats into hard labor in Ticonderoga, set up a sacrificial pit in the Embarcadero, spit corpses on the spire of Saeta House."

Moxley held up one hand, his Skinner scars a harsh white against the sudden green of his complexion. "We get it, Cyrenacia. We're in trouble." He swallowed, and Hotspur wondered if he was thinking about his new family, wife and brothers both, waiting for him to come home safe to Case Tigger. Hotspur refused to worry; between Buck and himself, Flora and Idden could hardly be better protected. He may be practically a secretary right now, but he was still a soldier. Still a Skinner. 

Still Hotspur.

The General took up her feathered bicorn from the table. "I can't do this without you," she said, placing it on her frizzing red bun. "Without both of you. Sorrel, head down to the O Club, tell Melacton and Hargity to meet us at the CGO at two. Hotspur, with me. I have to tell Florian; a witness will keep us from murdering each other." She strode out, not looking back. Hotspur sent another agonized glance to Moxley who frowned and tilted his chin at the door. Hotspur gritted his teeth and followed in the General’s wake.

* * *

Hotspur was ear-deep in maps when the knock came.

"Papa?"

He looked up. "Idden, darling!" She ran around his desk and leapt onto his lap. A plan of Cuilihacan went flying as he flung his arms around her. "What are you doing here, sweetheart?" He pressed kisses to her face, leaving lipstick marks on her forehead. 

She grinned and scrubbed at her face. "Mamma had to meet with the General, so she left Flora with Paimon and sent me to find you. Can you play?"

The Trinity Campaign was barely planned, and Hotspur had yet to find a route through the Sandlot Dry Drive that wouldn't leave the Army week and gasping, or a route around that wasn't packed with Birdie armies and Flayed Priests. They needed a direction, and they needed it yesterday. "I always have time for you, baby," he said, propping her up on the desk. "What do you want to play?"

She pouted, and it was the sweetest thing he'd ever seen. " _I_ wanted to play the limerick game, but Nini Mo told that she wanted to see you. She just had to tell Mamma something, but I think she's right behind me."

Huh. "We can play the limerick game until she gets here, poppet."

"Poppy! Don't call me poppet. I'm not a _baby_."

"My apologies, Madama Fydraaca ov Fydraaca." He schooled his face into his most serious expression. It was the one he used when he accompanied the General to Saeta House to speak to the Warlord. "Shall we play?"

Idden slipped off his lap and stood tall with her hands behind her back, for all as if she were reciting semiotics to the Holy Headmistress herself. "There once was a gazehound from Huitzl," she recited.

"Who liked to eat sparrows for meats-o," Hotspur countered.

Idden giggled. "His tummy was round."

"And then one day he found."

"That he had been nibbling on Quetzal!" Idden crowed triumphantly.

Hotspur cocked his head. "'Huitzl' doesn't really rhyme with 'Quetzal'."

"At least I didn't make up 'meats-o.'"

"Hey! What's wrong with 'meats-o?'"

She punched him on the arm. "Do you know what Archangel Bob would put on my report if I tried a rhyme like 'meats-o'?"

"He wouldn't be very impressed with 'Huitzl' and 'Quetzal' either, sweetheart."

"Oh, _pottypants_." She wrinkled her nose, and Hotspur wrapped her in his arms again, unable to withstand her mighty cuteness. Really they should hold her up in front of the Birdies; the Huitzls would just collapse from the adorable wrinkled nose and be unable to fight back when Hotspur swept through them. "At least I made a gazehound eat a Quetzal. That’s pretty niftily fabulouso."

"My bloodthirsty baby," he said, squeezing her, and he knew she was pleased because she giggled as she struggled out of the hug. "It's the niftiest."

Another knock, and Nini slipped into the office, carrying a tray.

"Corporal Keegan," he said.

"I come bearing bribes, Sir," she said, setting the tray down on his desk. He looked down: a pot of chocolate; scrambled eggs, sunshine-yellow and creamy, clearly from Paimon himself and not the rubbery kind they ate at barracks; mushroom enchiladas; Paimon's famous lemon meltaways. A plate of bear-shaped waffles, drenched with melting butter and strawberry syrup, which Nini was already handing to Idden with the admonishment to go find Paimon and Flora. Idden was too absorbed in devouring her own bribe to sulk at being sent away, and she slipped from his office with cheeks chipmunked out from sticky waffle.

"What's this about, Corporal?" He tried to sound stern, unflappable. He'd been at the barracks all last week, though, coming back to Bilskinir rarely and then always too exhausted to appreciate what little food he ate. Idden's presence had distracted him from his tense perusal of battle plans enough to remind him he was hungry -- was sending her ahead part of Nini's strategy to soften him up? He wouldn't put it past her, and it was admittedly brilliant. Now he couldn't resist the fragrant, homey goodies; half the eggs were gone before he managed to pause for breath. He slowed, savouring every bite of the wine-poached mushrooms in the cheesy enchiladas. It was difficult to stay suspicious.

"I need you to come on a trip with me, Hotspur," she said. 

"You need me, Buck needs me, General Brakespeare needs me." He showed his teeth. "Guess who has the highest rank? Here's a hint: it's not you."

Nini's laughter was rough with the rasp of all the cigarillos she smoked. "Don't you worry about Azota," she said. "I'll come up with a story that's good enough for her. But I've got a bone to pick with Xholto and I think you're the man to pick it for me."

He gestured at the charts and maps all over his desk. Technically he supposed it was a massive breach of military security for her to be this close to their Trinity plans, but she was Nyana Keegan, and everyone knew she would see whatever she wanted to see. "I have a job here, Corporal. I can't go gallivanting around Anahautl City taking scalps, or so I've been told."

Nini slipped her hand into her pocket and revealed a glittering silver badge. She flipped it onto the table with her thumb. It rattled back and forth, spinning slightly as it clattered to a stop. Enameled in Army purple and gray, the Unblinking Eye of the Rangers stared up at him.

"Nini--"

She flipped it over. _Reverdy Anacreon Fyrdraaca_ , it said on the back.

"Want to moonlight for me?" she asked, oh-so-casual.

Hotspur felt his heart strain against the bonds of loyalty that kept him in this chair, this office, this city, surrounded by paper and reports instead of scalped Birdies. "I'm no Ranger," he said at last. "Rangers sneak into cities under cover of darkness. Nobody notices Rangers. I'm the steeplechase champion, five-time winner of the Califa Polka Contest, notorious for executing those damned deserters, infamous for winning the trickshot competition and then shooting the cheater of a previously-reigning champion in the shoulder. The fiking bastard. How can I possibly do anything useful for the Rangers? You think I could be anonymous even out of uniform? Ha!"

Nini's smile had been growing through the entire monologue. "You misunderstand how to be secret, my dear. Tell me, if somebody snuck into the Warlord's Palace and painted the entire place with the sigil of the Pontifexa Haðraaða, who would you suspect? Azota? Buck? Yourself? Or some sneaking plebe in a black mask with an invisibility cloak?" 

He frowned. 

"There's nothing like being visible to make you invisible," she continued. "And Hotspur, you are one of the most visible people in Califa. I don't want you in plainclothes, I want you in bat sleeves and Flail, flouncing around and making a nuisance of yourself."

" _Flouncing?_ "

"Oh, don't deny it, you big baby." She opened his hand where it was resting in a tight fist on a map of Keohe'le, and pressed the badge into his palm. "You in?"

He stared at the badge. His name in raw, impersonal letters, looking just the same as it did on his current Army badge. Less tarnished, less battered, but the same. He didn't turn the badge over, but the Unblinking Eye felt like it was glaring raw fire into his palm.

He chafed to be on the field, not here, formulating plans for battles others would fight. He hated this donkey-buggering deskwork. Hated the strategizing and the planning and the blasted _maps_. 

But he was good at it.

They'd won back the Arivaipa Territory because of the campaign he and Moxley had put together themselves. They were holding their own south of Yokut. Trinity was flailing, but at least there was a chance.

Oh, to be _moving_ again.

"How badly will it hurt them? Will this just be tweaking Xholto's nose?"

"If it succeeds?" The grin spreading across Nini's face was unholy. Hotspur almost pitied any Birdie who got in her way. "We'll leave the Flayed Priests weeping and wailing in the streets."

He wondered if the grin he felt stretching across his own cheeks matched hers. "I'm in." His fingers curled around the identity badge. "I'm in."

* * *

Training with Nyana Keegan was like nothing he'd experienced in the Army. He imagined the teachers at Benica Barracks falling over in dead faints as Boy Hansgen critiqued his flirting technique; showed him how to paint his lips with a layer of grease, a layer of poison, and then a layer of crimson; modeled behaving completely blasted on smuggled rum while dancing on the table at the Poodle Dog, singing the filthy version of the chorus of “Bury Me in Immortal Oblivion”. Nini sat him down with the Eschatonomicon; critiqued his Grammatica; taught him Augeoeides and Bibliomancy; and how to start a fire with rocks. (It was easy, she explained, as long as one of them was flint and you had a pile of kindling.)

Basically, they taught him how to be exactly like himself, only noticing the world around him at the same time.

He still buried himself in maps and planned supply routes across the Sandlot Dry Drive. He still had weekly dinners with Buck and the girls whenever Buck was in the city, or just the girls, when Buck was out. He still was every bit the General's ADC, working with Moxley to make Azota’s appalling job slightly easier.

But at night, early in the mornings, while delivering routine messages to the kennels, at breakfast with Moxley and Azota, he practiced. Nini gave homework, and mocked him mercilessly when it was done poorly. Boy Hansgen gave him tasks to complete while running emergency errands for the General, and stood behind corners in Bilskinir, a froth of lace at his throat and lace-gloved fists on his hips, chuckling at Hotspur's efforts like he was a darling wee toddler.

Hotspur was the champion of the steeplechase. He was the five-time winner of the Califa Polka Contest. Nobody could outshoot him, outdance him, outride him, or outflirt him from Porkopolis to the Huitzil Empire. If Nini and Boy Hansgen thought he couldn't do it, he would show them.

"Dare, win, or disappear," Nini said to him, as he tried to pick her pocket while she hid in plain sight in a crowd outside the O Club and he had to hold the door for the General.

"I win," he said later, holding up the ruby she'd _sewn_ to the inside of her breast pocket.

Even Boy Hansgen looked impressed.

“It’s time,” said Nini Mo, and Hotspur couldn’t hold back his victorious laugh.

* * *

> "There's a pigeon from Udo," said Buck, without preamble, entering Crackpot's kitchen. "He's bringing _El Pato de Oro_ into the Califa waters.
> 
> Hotspur looked up from his game of patience. "Has he got the Duquesa?" he asked, idly flipping the three of swords between two fingers.
> 
> "Yes," said Buck. "And the Duquesa's got Flora."
> 
> The pasteboard card crumpled between Hotspur's suddenly clenched fingers. "So," he said.
> 
> "Ayah, so" said Buck, her face grim. "To the ship?"
> 
> He stood and looped his arm though hers. "To the Embarcadro, my General. Let's see what Flora's brought back."
> 
> Buck's knuckles were white. "You seem confident, Glorious Boy."
> 
> "It's our Flora," he said. "She's survived the Ultimate Ranger Dare. I don't know what she's bringing us with this Duquesa, but I'm sure it will be interesting." He tossed the crumpled playing card to the floor and bowed Buck out the door with his most elaborate courtesy. "Shall we, Madama?"


End file.
